Quantum Mirror
by BookwormDragon
Summary: A collection of one-shots and developed plot bunnies for Stargate & Stargate:Atlantis.
1. An Efficient Use of Resources

An Efficient Use of Resources  
by BookwormDragon

_**Disclaimer**__: Neither the Stargate: Atlantis Universe nor any of the Characters in the Stargate: Atlantis_ _Universe belong to me. No profit is made from this story on my part. No copyright infringement is intended._

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"I just think that it's ridiculous to wait for our gruesome yet heroic deaths at the hands of the Wraith when the answer is so simple!" Rodney grumbled, frustrated. "It's not just our own lives we have to worry about, you know! What if the Wraith get access to the Gate? And what about the Athosians? We've promised them our protection, and even if, by some unlikely chance, we take out most of the Wraith fleet, we won't be able to destroy them all!"

"We're doing all we can, Rodney! We really can't do much more except pray for a miracle." The edge in Weir's voice betrayed her exhaustion.

"No, we aren't doing everything we can! As for praying, I somehow doubt that the Ancients give a damn about us lowly mortals, the arrogant cowards - otherwise, they wouldn't have run away _ten thousand years_ ago, leaving their stupid creations behind to _eat_ people! Prayers - hah! If you want to waste time and energy on that, go right ahead. Meanwhile, I'll just be, you know, actually working on a way to save our asses once again, as usual! And speaking of which, we know where a perfectly good ZPM is, so why are we still sitting here like idiots, anyway?"

"What on Earth are you talking about, Rodney?"

"M4X-703."

"Rodney! How can you even suggest such a thing? Without the ZPM, they would be helpless before the Wraith! We would be committing murder!"

"Who said anything about killing anyone except the Wraith?"

"But-"

"Idiots! I am surrounded by idiots! A bunch of monkeys would be more intelligent!"

"Hey!"

"Look, that ZPM is powering a very small shield which was, quite frankly, inefficiently jury-rigged over 10,000 years ago - do you have any idea how much power is wasted every single day that it operates? It can only protect a very small number of people, and it's strictly defensive. But if we plugged it into the City, it could either shield or cloak the entire city. A city, I might add, which can theoretically shelter thousands, even millions, of people. If we used it only to protect or hide, it could last for generations. Generations! And that doesn't even consider the fact that the City has weapons that could be accessed with sufficient power. We might even find something to defeat the Wraith, eventually!"

"That still doesn't justify-"

"Don't you think that if we explained it to the children on M4X-703, that they would _want_ to use the ZPM to protect more people, and maybe even defeat the Wraith? Do you think that they _like_ committing ritual suicide at 25?"

"So, asking them all to commit suicide right now for the greater good is better?"

"What?! No! What is this ridiculous obsession you people have with death?! No one needs to die! We can bring them here, to Atlantis, with the ZPM! They can stay in the City until the Wraith realize that this was a wild goose chase and leave, and then they can move to mainland if they like, or we can teach them to work in the city, or...well they'll have lots of choices, they seemed quite intelligent to me, except for the whole ritual suicide thing! And, hey, they won't need to do that anymore, either!"

"Oh. That's actually a very good plan. I don't know why we didn't think of it earlier, in fact..."

"Well, I _am_ a genius..."

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**Author's Note:** This is a response to SGA's canon stupidity. While my dialogue is unique, the idea itself is not: the solution is so obvious that many fan authors have used it in their stories. I just thought that Rodney deserved the chance to tell everyone how stupid they were and actually be right. :) I also wanted to show that this solution is beneficial to everyone, and not a case of tricking the "poor, backward natives" into handing over valuable tech for nothing. As Rodney implies, the idea is that the Lanteans will now reach out to other worlds, eventually turning Atlantis into both a Sanctuary from, and a weapon against, the Wraith. Someday, this may become part of a larger Independent!Atlantis AU.


	2. Sympathetic Magic

**Sympathetic Magic**

By BookwormDragon

_**Disclaimer**__: Neither the Stargate: Atlantis Universe nor any of the Characters in the__Stargate: Atlantis_ _Universe belong to me. No profit is made from this story on my part. No copyright infringement is intended.

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_

It was something they had never thought to guard against. This wasn't an old fairy tale, after all. There was no such thing as magic, and the DNA that the human body naturally shed in the course of everyday life couldn't be used to curse you.

Except that it _could_. The Asgard only required a very small DNA sample to create what was, in essence, a new life. And when the Trust entered into an Alliance with Loki, a rouge Asgard scientist, who would know or care about what happened to that new, fragile life?

John Sheppard had never imagined that his enforced visit to Earth for debriefing after contact with the SGC was reestablished would result in his waking up in a much younger body, in an Asgard Science Cruiser, light years away from either Atlantis or Earth. Apparently, he was the payment for a little deal that Loki and the Trust had cooked up together. Loki had agreed to perfectly clone one individual for them, and in exchange, they had agreed to provide a suitable DNA sample from a strong ATA carrier other than O'Neill, which would be his to do with as he pleased.

The Trust had chosen Rodney McKay as their prize - the foremost expert on Ancient Technology and a certified genius, and had given John's DNA to Loki as _his_ prize - a naturally strong and intelligent ATA carrier. Both sides had clearly been very pleased with the results of their bargain, so much so that Loki had apparently been quite generous.

"I ensured that the McKay clone was in perfect health, and improved the primitive gene therapy which appeared in the sample, integrating it more tightly with the subject's natural Life Code," he had informed John, smugly. Well, at least John had thought that he was smug; it was difficult to tell with the alien.

As a captor, Loki wasn't all that bad. He made sure that John had all the nasty-tasting Asgard ration cubes that he could eat, provided comfortable if sparse living quarters, and, once John gave up trying overpower him and escape (only temporarily, of course, John knew how to pick his battles), he freely shared knowledge with him, answering all of his questions and even programming some sort of tutor into the console in his quarters to teach him how to read Asgard and Ancient. John thought that this was a little strange, but who was he to point out his captor's mistakes, especially when they worked in his own favor?

As John learned more about Asgard culture and history, Loki's generosity towards him took on an even more suspicious cast. Having cloned themselves for longer than Humans had existed, the Asgard no longer learned, at least not at the basic levels that John required, which meant that Loki had made a thorough study of how humans learned and then designed various tutors for the sole purpose of teaching him. But why? Why bother to keep him awake or treat him well at all, in fact? Surely it would have been much simpler for the scientist to simply place him in stasis until he was needed?

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**Author's Note: **The beginning of a story I will probably never write, about the teenage clones of John and Rodney loose in the Milky Way Galaxy. Explores the Asgard culture in more depth, as well as various other Milky Way cultures. Unable to return to Earth (or perhaps they actually escape from Earth's tender care, frustrated with being pushed aside and discounted), they have many adventures, thanks to the ancient (antique) Jumper they found.  
The title comes from the magical belief that "Like calls to Like", which basically says that anything that was once a part of the whole, or which sufficiently resembles the whole, can be used to affect the whole.


	3. Never Turn Your Back

**Never Turn Your Back**

By BookwormDragon

_**Disclaimer**__: Neither the Stargate: Atlantis Universe nor any of the Characters in the __Stargate: Atlantis_ _Universe belong to me. No profit is made from this story on my part. No copyright infringement is intended.

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_

The most ironic part, thought Radek sadly, was that after everything that happened to them here in the Pegasus Galaxy, it wasn't the Wraith, or the Replicators, or the Genii who broke them. No, it was Earth.

Earth, the one place where they should have been safe, the place that so many Lanteans had given their lives in defense of. Earth.

Earth had taken them and turned them into mere shadows of themselves. Through kidnappings, cullings, slavery, and that never-to-be-spoken-of incident on PX-339, SGA-1 had stood strong. True, they had sometimes cracked a little, sometimes bent. But they had never broken, never shattered.

Until Earth. Until the Trust. Until they had been kidnapped while on vacation and spirited away in the name of Homeworld Security.

Everyone in power had disavowed all knowledge of the incident, of course, claiming that it had been carried out by rogue agents, but Radek was not a naive man.

Yes, it was possible that rogue agents might occur occasionally in any organization, but the Trust seemed to be made up of _nothing but_ rogue agents. Ergo, they weren't rogue agents at all, but legitimate agents carrying out sanctioned operations, only disavowed when they proved to be an embarrassment to their superiors. And someone in power was looking the other way, allowing their activities to continue.

Don't think that he hadn't noticed that no one had made any mention of the "data" that the "unsanctioned experiments" had gathered. No reassurances that it had been destroyed, no offers to share freely. The PTB might regret that they had gotten caught in such an embarrassing manner, but they weren't above making use of their ill-gotten gains.

It was uncharitable of him, he knew, but he truly hoped that everything that Rodney had been forced to do for them was riddled with errors that would cause large explosions at unforeseen moments. A good explosion could brighten any day – and even better if it just _happened_ to occur during a meeting of the Trust's leaders: such a pleasant coincidence…

And if they manage to use any of what they had stolen from John, Ronon, or Teyla – well, he hoped the Trust scientists' deaths were slow and bloody. They deserved it and more besides.

The scientist in him was absolutely horrified: so much of what they had done to his friends had been completely unnecessary to reach their stated goals. Even the Wraith had more decency, if only because their actions were motivated by biological necessity, and not by uncontrolled sadism.

These days, Radek wondered what, exactly, Earth had done to deserve the Lantean blood that had been shed on Their behalf. Perhaps it was time to kick Them out of the nest, so to speak? Let them reap the consequences of their own actions, for once. Atlantis was fed up with being Their punching bag and scapegoat.

* * *

**Author's Note:** This was inspired by the common appearance of so-called "Rogue" Trust agents as villains. Like Radek, I've got a nice piece of beachfront property in Arizona, if you're interested…  
I just took the trope to its natural conclusion.


	4. The Real Daniel Jackson

**Would the Real Daniel Jackson Please Stand Up?**

**By BookwormDragon**

_**Disclaimer**__: Neither the Stargate Universe or any of the Characters in the Stargate Universe belongs to me. No profit is made from this story on my part. No copyright infringement is intended.

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_

Maybe it's the advantage of being an outsider, but when Cameron looks at Daniel Jackson, he doesn't see what everyone else seems to see.

Everyone else seems to think that Daniel Jackson is some sort of fragile genius: self-sacrificing, absentminded, narrowly focused, pacifist, wouldn't-know-one-end-of-a-gun-from-the-other, and way too smart for his own good.

Cameron doesn't know what they've been smoking, but that's totally not who Daniel Jackson is.

When he looks at Daniel Jackson, he sees a man who's been broken, but hasn't given up. He's sees a man who's more than willing to make the hard decisions, a man who will back him up in the field without hesitation. He also sees a man who is angry, soul-tired, and cynical. Daniel Jackson is one dangerous mother-fucker who could probably beat the shit out of Cam with one hand tied behind his back. The fact that he hasn't yet means something. He's not sure what, but it means something.

He even goes so far as too listen to Cam's orders, despite the fact that they all know that Daniel is more than capable of leading the team himself.

It's rather intimidating, actually. Here he is, giving orders to three true veterans, all smart, strong, and more than competent. Every one of them has the credentials to be leading their own teams. And they all listen to him, the wet-behind-the-ears new guy. Intimidating.

Yeah, Daniel is many things, including a pain in the ass sometimes; but fragile isn't one of those things. Neither is pacifist, awkward, naïve, innocent, or weak.

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**Author's Note:** This little piece is the result of my frustrations concerning Daniel Jackson's portrayal in fandom. Few writers seem to have noticed just how much Daniel has changed. Or, if they do notice it, it's only to bemoan how horrible the changes are. There's something wrong with gaining survival skills? With embracing the reality of your life and making the best of it? Really? Growth and change are natural, and it's cruel to deny Daniel the right to grow and change. Just because he can now kick ass doesn't mean that he's suddenly turned into a stupid killing machine. In fact, the implication that soldiers are nothing but stupid killing machines is downright offensive. This isn't an either/or choice, here. Daniel can be a soldier _and_ a scientist, historian, archeologist, anthropologist, etc.

As for the statement that Daniel isn't a pacifist: well, he isn't. True Pacifism means never using a weapon or provoking violence of any kind, for any reason – even in self defense. It means accepting, not fighting. Now, I'm not dissing Pacifism, here. It takes real courage to stand so solidly behind your beliefs, to the point that you will go against your own instincts for survival. But Daniel fights all the time. With words, with weapons, with his fists, with actions. He doesn't know how to _not_ fight. His stubborn fight to survive is a core component of the character. In short, he is **not** a pacifist. A peacemaker, maybe, but not a pacifist.


End file.
